Yahoo Gets P&G Display Love; Facebook's Mobile Ad Relevance

Procter & Gamble’s marketing chief Mark Pritchard talks about his company’s much discussed digital strategy, especially as it relates to the Olympics, in an interview with Ad Age’s Cotton Delo. Delo reports, “Mr. Pritchard declined to say how much P&G had spent on sponsored stories to promote its Facebook content. He also said that Yahoo was P&G's biggest partner on the display and video ad front, in addition to hosting sponsored contents on its Team Mom blog.” Read more.

Following The Click

Former RMX-er and Demand Media-er Jacob Ross makes a rare public appearance on the Criteo Tumblr blog. With research in hand, Ross rebuts skeptics who believe that - post conversion - buyers are natural born clickers who will continue to buy buy buy. And so, Ross explains, “What we did is take a hard look at the data across our business to extract some trends in response. What we found shows the exact opposite is true, and underscores the necessity of actively targeting buyers. First, a quick level set. In terms of our economics, we of course charge on a per-click basis. However, we look at success not just in terms of CTR, but in terms of post-click conversions.” Read more.

‘Humans Over Crawlers’

With changes in Google’s search algo, Yaron Galai, CEO of content marketing co. Outbrain, thinks that we’re about to enter into a new online golden age for publishers. Writing in AdAge, Galai says, “The pendulum is finally swinging back to favoring humans over crawlers. The New SEO (search engine optimization) rules point directly back to what was valued in the traditional print-dominated days -- content will not be a mechanism to convert clicks but a tool to boost awareness, increase overall engagement and offer opportunities to connect with a quality audience.” Read more.

Mobile Ad Relevance

All Things D’s Peter Kafka dissects the observations of BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield who has been looking at a lotta Facebook mobile ads lately. Kafka reports: “[Greenfield’s] main beef: Facebook, which should be armed with an enormous amount of information about him, keeps showing him ads for things he doesn’t care about, like display ads from Target and Samsung. He’s particularly baffled by the ads he keeps seeing from Walmart, because he lives in New York City, where Walmart doesn’t have any stores.” Read more. Maybe there isn’t enough demand for his type of audience to make ads hyper-relevant?

Google’s FTC Truce

As expected last month, Google and the Federal Trade Commission settled their dispute for a relative pittance ($27 mil) over whether the search giant misrepresented its privacy practices to consumers via Apple’s Safari browser. Read the FTC’s release.

MaxiMath

DSP MediaMath and sell-side platform Maxifier have partnered up to provide programmatic buying services in Japan. According to a release, “Maxifier’s leadership team (...) will be leading business development for the platform as well as managing and providing first line support to clients adopting it. At the same time, MediaMath will be establishing dedicated Japanese resources based in the US to work alongside Maxifier to deliver to the needs of the Japanese clients.” Read more. Maxifier COO Tony Katsur is the former GM at MediaMath.

What Facebook Has In Store

Facebook’s stock continues to struggle, but the social network has made tremendous progress in its relationships with small- to medium-sized businesses, Search Engine Watch reports. On average, SMBs with both a Facebook store and an their own branded online outlet grew the portion of total e-commerce revenue coming from Facebook sales by 5 percent from the previous consecutive quarter to 22 percent in the past one.

Infographic Friday

Retargeter AdRoll pulls data from a variety of media-related sources to create a “Back-to-School” infographic. See it now!